


the other side

by Val_Creative



Series: IT Movies Fic-Palooza 2019 [19]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Explicit Language, Family, Friendship, Heavy Angst, Humor, Minor Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Minor Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Movie: IT Chapter Two (2019), No Smut, Sad Eddie Kaspbrak, Stanley Uris is a Good Friend, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 18:34:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20765030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: Stanley and Eddie meet once more in the afterlife.





	the other side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnonManon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonManon/gifts).

> Requested by AnonManon (AO3): "Eddie and Stan meeting up in the afterlife and just shooting the breeze basically." This is fifty kinds of pain but also emotional and heartwarming. At least for me. I really am hoping you guys like it! 
> 
> ((Want a request for IT? I'm doing 100-1000 word fics of any friendship or romantic ship + any prompt until I feel like quitting. Rules: you need to comment here and provide a friendship or romantic ship + prompt. You need to specify if you want SFW or NSFW (for 18+ readers only). Please check [Full Rules](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1478582). The only requests I'll be looking at is if you ALSO commented about the fic you read as well. It's only fair. You came to this fic to read it and me doing something for you later on is a sweet bonus!))

*

Green. So much green everywhere.

Eddie lurches against the thick, all-encompassing shrubs and ferns, pushing them away with both hands. His nose picks up an odor like sweet white violets and turtleheads. Daylilies. Rhodendron. Highbush cranberries.

He trudges through the damp, sunken soil, wincing at how it muddies the bottoms of his pant-legs. Eddie rolls them up to his upper calves. He then impulsively decides to peel off his socks and sneakers, Eddie's bare toes squishing into the cool ground. Vines like wintergreen and pachysandra curl around the massive tree-trunks and boulders. Wild oats. Indiana cumber roots. Maple leaf. Hobblebrush that reeks like manure. Eddie cups over his face, deliberately going around them.

And, up ahead, there's the blue-bead lilies in the wildlife Eddie remembers—Ben almost ate one of the poisonous berries, complaining about how he missed breakfast. Stanley _yelled_ out Ben's name, frantically thrusting around a confused, swearing Richie, whacking it out of his hand. He yelled some more about how he needed to be careful. Ever the Boy Scout.

In another few feet, Eddie hears burbling, running water.

He stumbles through dogwood brush and lots of bitter-aroma brier, finally glimpsing a clearing in the Barrens.

Stanley, with his own designer, wool trousers rolled up, sloshes through the canal water to his ankles. He's in his late thirties, lugging a creek rock, flat and with square edges, onto a pile of more rocks. Sunlight gleams on his stainless steel Jaeger-LeCoultre wristwatch.

Eddie doesn't quite know why yet—but he's happy. So, so _happy_ to have Stanley here with him.

"You gonna help me or just stand there?" Stanley calls out gruffly, raising his eyebrows.

He wads in, nodding and eagerly grabbing the other side of a heavier rock Stanley tosses. They put together some rotted, wooden boards in a row facing each other, supporting the entire dam and to barricade the flow of water. Stacking the creek rocks together, biggest to smallest. From bottom to top. Wedging dry, broken sticks under the rock foundation and crossing them on top of the dam. Using mud and leaves as a plaster. More sticks into the gaps between the rocks.

"Holy shit…" Eddie breathes out, gazing around at the water now up to their knees.

Stanley's lips tilt up. "We could flood out the whole Barrens if we wanted," he exclaims. Their wet hands grip together, congratulatory, drawing them in to bump each other. Stanley's palm slaps heartily against Eddie's back.

Eddie peers down his reflection in the dam's water. It _warps_, elongating his face and torso.

"This isn't real, is it?" Eddie says, his chest feeling tight. Like he needs his inhaler. He burned it… god, Eddie _burned_ his inhaler? Why? _Why_ did he do something like that? He needs it. He _needs_ it now before Eddie has a fucking asthma attack.

"Depends," Stanley answers quietly, rubbing his palms onto his thighs.

"On what?"

"On how you face the truth." Eddie wheezes, clutching over his shirt and staring horrified as Stanley's expression remains vacant. "There's only one truth," Stanley admits. "You can either deny it or accept it, but the truth doesn't change."

The dam's water ripples, warping faster at Eddie's knees. He can see it now—the evils of the Neibolt House collapsing in on itself, roiling into cavernous, hellish depths. Their friends jumping off the porch, fleeing onto Neibolt Street and practically tripping over themselves. Mike and Ben grab onto Richie covered in Eddie's dark blood, who thrashes and howls for Eddie.

Eddie makes another low, distressed wheeze, shaking his head and back up. He mutters, denying until Eddie can't, reaching for an apprehensive Stanley. The other man steadies Eddie, helping him upright, clutching his arm.

"You're okay, Eddie… it's over…"

"_I'm dead_," Eddie whispers, mournful. Tears leaking over Eddie's mouth.

Stanley nods, his fingers clenching down hard.

He wants to process it fully, but Eddie remembers what's happened to Stanley before all of this. Eddie looks at him in complete devastation. "I'm sorry," he says, taking a moment to hug Stanley one-armed. To console him. "I'm sorry, Stan."

A tender, little smile. Stanley hugs him too, feeling no pain or regret.

"You wanna get some milkshakes?"

"What?" Eddie asks, and then finds himself standing in the middle of King's Diner. Bright fluorescent lighting overhead. Waitresses in thin, red striped uniforms. Eddie used to gawk at their skirts and how high they rose up. "… What the _fuck_?"

_"Hey, watch your fucking language. There's kids here."_

A man carrying a little girl walks by, sneering down at them from under his nose.

Eddie's seated now at a corner-table, across from Stanley fiddling with a straw to his chocolate banana milkshake. No whipped cream or cherry. Just how Stanley preferred it. Eddie recognizes the man's face from Mike's newspaper clippings.

"You're one to talk," Stanley points out.

Eddie sticks his finger into a rainbow-confetti cake batter milkshake, licking, astonished by the pure sugary taste. It's _real_. He seizes it, gleefully swallowing a mouthful or two. The fluffy, white whipped cream coating the tip of Eddie's nose.

"Oh, he's cute…" Adrian Mellon gazes over Eddie, intrigued. "Date?"

Stanley presents out his wedding ring. "I'm taken," he states.

"What's your name?" Eddie asks the little girl shyly peeking from Adrian's shirt. Her little fists balled up.

"Vicky…"

"I'm looking after her until her parents show," Adrian explains, brow furrowing. He re-positions her against his chest, an arm tucked under her. "Man, you don't even know—this whole fatherhood thing is wearing me down. I could use Don." He turns his head, attitude switching to overly gentle and loving. "You wanna get some curly fries, kiddo?"

Vicky tells him yes, bashfully, snuggling her little pale arms to Adrian's neck. Adrian cradles her little back, walking them away.

Eddie can see Dean with his grandparents, crowded in a booth, his kid-sized skateboard tucked under his arm. Betty Ripsom and her mother, in another corner-table, giggling when Betty leaps onto her feet, twirling and dancing in her new tap-shoes.

"Where's yours?"

"Huh?" Eddie asks, looking at Stanley.

"Your wedding ring. Aren't you married too?"

"Oh _christ_, Stanley…" Eddie groans, pressing his fingers over his face as Stanley chuckles. "She talks and acts and looks _exactly_ like my mom. But with permed blonde hair. Thank god we didn't consummate anything. I could barely _touch_ her."

"To be honest, I always thought you and Richie would have been a thing. If you could, y'know, get over yourselves."

Stanley rests his chin to his palm, smirking.

Like he always knew. Stanley always knew everything.

Eddie glances down at his milkshake, not ready to admit that out loud. How much he would have liked that with Richie. Maybe… maybe Richie would have liked that with him too. "I've missed you, Stan," Eddie mumbles, feeling Stanley's other hand on his.

"Missed you too."

*


End file.
